Mandy put her key into the lock to the old 'Flynn's' gaming arcade, entering as quickly as she had left this afternoon. It was dark now and the place was completely deserted. She thought about how mad she'd been, and still was at her father. Shaking her dark hair from her eyes, Mandy flipped the switches on the circuit board in front of her and turned to watch a hundred games come to life again.

Mandy walked slowly towards the back of the arcade, making her way towards the 'Tron' game.

"I'll show you the grid," Mandy muttered to herself as she pushed a quarter into the Tron machine. "Yeah, right."

Mandy continued to mumble to herself as the quarter fell through then out slot, the clink of the coin clearly audible in the desolate quite of the empty arcade, the coin wasn't accepted by the machine.

As Mandy bent down to pick up the coin, she noticed a circular groove surrounding the gaming area.

'The game must be on a turntable.' She finally concluded and set about trying to shift the machine.

When it finally gave way, Mandy discovered an old door - rusty at the hinges, the metal turning green from age and exposure to damp. Mandy gave the once concealed door a good shove and it came open. Aside from the layers of dust and enormous cobwebs present in the room, there was nothing special about the place... except for an old and rather large computer situated in the middle of the back wall. Mandy turned the ancient computer on and sat down to have a look see what data files it still held. The way everything had played out during this present visit to 'Flynn's' arcade reminded Mandy of the story her dad used to tell her when she was younger. In fact, it was exactly the same.

'Coincidence has to be.' Mandy thought to herself as the old screen lit up.

"Okay..." Mandy said, getting down to business, half talking to herself half to the computer. "Let's see what you know."

Mandy typed:

Who am I?

The reply was:

Flynn.

"Okay, last names aside, what data have you got stored in you?" Mandy asked the room.

Mandy smiled, hacking into PC systems was her speciality. She got past the server files and navigated her way to the mater file to discover a sequencing program for an old laser project.

She clicked on the program to open it and the computer brought up a dialogue box, asking her:

Continue?

Yes No

Mandy hesitated for a second; this was getting all too like that old story. But that was just a story... wasn't it? Mandy finally rolled her eyes at her own paranoia and clicked the 'Yes' option. The next thing Mandy knew, she was sucked into oblivion by something and had the simultaneous sensations of flying and falling. As soon as she stopped moving, her eyes flew open. She was in a dark room, not unlike the one she had been in a few moments ago. This was just a little too weird, but Mandy had never been able to leave well enough alone. Mandy bolted from the room and out the doors of the arcade.

The sight that lay before her was, in Mandy's mind...impossible. Had the world gone nuts in the ten minutes it had taken her to hack a computer?

"Okay," Mandy said to herself. "We're not in Kansas anymore..."

It was all different. Lit up. Electrified. Blue, red and white lights that resembled neon tubing, or perhaps a semi-contained radio-active substance.

A spotlight shone down on Mandy from above, temporarily blinding her. As Mandy began to put together a logical conclusion in her head, a deep voice rang out, loud and clear, directly above where she stood.

"Program. Identify Yourself."

"Program...what program?"

"You do not comply."

"What? I'm not a program!" Mandy yelled, and then began to consider what was being said. 'Program? Identify? I'm not...no...No way! I'm on the grid! Ha! I'm on the grid!'

"Retrieve Program."

"Oh," Mandy said, eyes widening. "Not good."

As a large transport craft appeared overhead and began its decent, Mandy ran. She took a left at the end of the block. Jumping into a side alley as the road began to break up into hexagonal shaped platforms that rose and fell, making the road mountainous.

Mandy took one brief look, saw the retrieval programs coming, and took off down the alley. She came out the other end was abruptly seized by two strong programs and dragged down the street.

"Where you think you going, pretty face?" One of them said.

"Let go!" Mandy yelled at the top of her lungs as she struggled against their hold.

"Now, now, little miss," The other said. "She's a tough little program."

"I'm not a program!" Mandy tried to explain. "I'm a...I'm a...a user!"

Mandy suddenly remembered with perfect clarity, the stories her father had once told her as a small child. Stories of the grid and the amazing adventures that could take place there.

"Come on, girly." The same program said roughly. "User or program, you need an identity disc."